


Scenes From Two Hollywood Marriages

by GinnyK



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Genre: Divorce, Drug Addiction, Gen, Marriage, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3593802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyK/pseuds/GinnyK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little back story about Danny's two ex-wives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes From Two Hollywood Marriages

**Author's Note:**

> I found this when I was reading through my LiveJournal account. It is the only Studio 60 story I wrote.

The sun streamed in the window, causing a still half asleep Danny Tripp to roll over in his sleep. When that wasn't enough to stop the assault of brightness, he pulled the pillow over his head and buried his face into the worn striped sheets.

Eventually the call of nature couldn't be ignored and he pushed back the plaid comforter and padded to the bathroom. He took care of business and turned towards the sink. Glancing at his haggard appearance in the mirror, he let out a frustrated breath. He scrubbed a hand down his face and grabbed the cup to get a drink of water. 

Danny paused by the shower for a second, contemplating hopping in but instead he headed back to the bedroom, flopping down face first on the bed. He landed diagonally on the bed, his bare feet hanging off the corner as he shoved the pillow back under his head. A few minutes of tossing and turning later and he gave up on going back to sleep. A quick glance at the clock told him it was well past time to get up; it was quickly closing in on noon.

With a loud sigh Danny rolled back off the bed and pulled the comforter up in a half hearted attempt to make the bed. He tossed the pillows back up to the head of the bed where they belonged with a thought he'd had hundreds of times---in his world, stripes and plaids didn't match.

Coordinating fabrics, that was what ex-wife number two always called them. Jillian was a Martha Stewart wanna-be who enjoyed spending Danny's money. She filled their house with potpourri, candles and food Danny wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. She had coordinating pillows, window treatments and bed linens, things Danny never gave a crap about.

Danny and Jillian had been married for almost 8 years, a lifetime by Hollywood standards. Thanks to Jillian, they were photographed often. Knowing where to be and when had been one of Jillian's goals. And she had been good at it. Tucked in a closet somewhere was an old scrapbook Danny couldn't bring himself to part with. He never looked at it yet something inside him wouldn't let him toss it out. It was a reminder of how things had been and what he'd lost. They still loved each other when they split, they just weren't "in love".

The divorce had happened just like the wedding, quickly.

As the Billy Joel song goes, "they parted the closest of friends". 

Jillian had just remarried 6 month earlier. She'd found herself a nice dentist who had a practice on Park Avenue. Moved clear across the country. Deep down Danny was happy for her.  
He thought of her from time to time, had emailed her once or two since the wedding but he was truly ready to leave the life they had together behind him.

And yet, many of her touches still remained in the house even 3 years after the divorce was final. The striped sheets were still used. They got traded off with the plain blue ones, which matched the comforter better. Danny had bought them on a rare trip to the mall. The potpourri was long gone; Danny didn't see the point of keeping around something that people kept mistaking for a snack. Besides, Glade Plug-ins worked just fine to keep the house smelling decent, at least they were when Danny remembered to buy the refills. Danny was sure that tucked in the dark recesses of the pantry there were some stray cans of something strange in there. Something organic or trendy, either one worked for Jillian. Whole Foods had been her favorite grocery store and she frequently dragged Danny there along with her. He complained and whined and yet, with Jillian now thousands of miles away, he was known to spend a Sunday afternoon roaming the aisles of Whole Foods.

Danny pulled on a pair of running shorts and an old t-shirt in preparation for a short run. Running was something he'd done on and off through the years. After turning 40 he tried to do it more often, figuring maybe the exercise would work a little to offset the crappy eating and sleeping habits he'd developed over the last few years. They were both pitfalls of the industry; he'd learned that long ago.

With an old baseball cap on his head and iPod in hand, Danny went out to the back deck to stretch a little before heading out to run a few miles.

The weather was beautiful, a few stray clouds in the sky and a light breeze blowing. It took about a mile for Danny to get into a rhythm, a little longer than usual but he chalked that up to the fact he hadn't run in almost a week. He had gone for a run last Sunday and Monday but by the time Tuesday rolled around, Matt had been stressed, which by definition, led to Danny being stressed and when stressed, things in his personal life got pushed aside in favor of throwing himself into his work.

It was a vicious cycle at times, one he'd run for most of his adult life. Eating right and taking care of himself were pushed aside in favor of working obscene hours, ignoring what personal life he had and for a portion of his adult life, it meant spending time in a drug induced haze.

The drug use had started in college. But that drug use had been "normal college stuff" or so he told himself. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't but what it led to was years spent in a blurry world of work and drugs. And in the center of that world was Daisy, the first Mrs. Tripp.

Danny and Daisy had gone to college together. She was two years ahead of Danny. He was enthralled by her, that a junior from sunny Southern California would be interested in a geeky, skinny freshman from the Midwest. Daisy, as he soon found out, was a very, very high functioning drug addict. She pulled down straight A's, never skipped class and had the ability to sit in class totally high, without a soul realizing it. Danny wasn't quite as lucky and it was only by the skin of his teeth that he made it out of his sophomore year. 

Daisy had graduated with Honors and gone on to work for an investment firm, all the while keeping up with her drug habit. Danny was never as big a drug user as Daisy but he did more than he should, but could stop if he wanted to.

Or so he told himself.

Two weeks after he graduated, not exactly with Honors, Danny had proposed to Daisy. It was a drug induced whim, as was the spur of the moment trip to Las Vegas the following weekend. The weekend had been a blur of drugs, liquor and sex. They settled down in Hollywood, near Daisy's job, close to the world that Danny had longed to be a part of. 

For 6 years they were relatively happy, until Daisy's drug habit started to take a toll on her physically and on their relationship. It wasn't like Danny was clean and sober, but after starting a "real" job in the industry; drugs were something he did in order to spend time with Daisy. 

Eventually as he tried his best to beat his drug habit, Danny realized that he didn't want Daisy to be a part of his life any longer. The divorce wasn't messy, by Hollywood standards. They were both still young and went their separate ways. Daisy took off for a few months to "find herself". What she found was a new group of drug addict friends in San Francisco. She never looked back, or returned to Hollywood. Danny hadn't heard from her since about a year after the divorce.

It was a long haul but Danny eventually did beat the drug habit and was clean for years. It was his greatest personal accomplishment to date. It taken hours of meetings, soul searching and tears but he had done it.

And now he was back where he started, or almost at any rate. But what he lacked then, he had now, maturity, insight and a circle of friends on whom he could lean on rely on, with Matt at the top of the list.

Heading back towards the hill that lead back home, Danny tugged up the hem of his shirt and wiped his face. The run ended better than it had started, with a burst of unexpected energy, Danny pushed himself up the hill at a fast clip. He stumbled in the front door and towards the shower, after a quick stop by the kitchen for a drink of water.

After getting dressed, Danny went out to the back deck with a cup of coffee, a bagel and the Sunday paper. Out of habit he pulled out the Entertainment section first. There was a short article about the apparent miraculous comeback of Studio 60. He smiled as he read it.

With a satisfied sigh Danny tossed the paper aside after reading most of the headlines and Sports section. He drained the last of the coffee and pushed himself out of the chair, heading back in the house to get going with his day. After quick check of his email in his home office, checking in with Matt to make sure he was among the living and going through the mail that tended to pile up the latter half of the week, Danny brushed his teeth, grabbed his wallet, pulled the scrap of paper off the refrigerator with the shopping list and headed out to the garage.

After taking in a nearby meeting, where his mind wandered as it always did, back to his life with Daisy, Danny spent the next hour or so wandering the aisles of Whole Foods, where his mind wandered towards Jillian. 

They were his past. 

For better or for worse, they had helped make him who he was today.


End file.
